Operation Choke Point hits knife manufacturers

From The Truth about Knives via H/T at Instapundit:

Operation Choke-point is the scandal-ridden Department of Justice’s initiative aimed at punishing making business difficult for those industries they don’t like. Payday lenders (ok, these can be dicey but are still better than loan-sharks), coin dealers (precious metals throw a wrench in their fiat currency scam), and firearms manufacturers and dealers (because…guns are icky and stuff) have all been targeted by the Obama’s highly-politicized DOJ. Since the Administration’s frontal assaults on the Second Amendment have not yielded the results they want, they have resorted to Executive Branch action to try to move the ball. In this they are pressuring financial institutions to deny banking services to the targeted industries.

While Congress is trying to put an end this abuse, Operation Choke Point is expanding into new realms. This past Friday Hogue Inc. announced that Wells Fargo has refused to do business with them, because they ostensibly manufacture “weapons”.

We needs people from the DOJ to be led out in handcuffs!

House Passes Bill Aimed At Operation Choke Point

From The Daily Caller:

The House voted Thursday on legislation to make it more difficult for banking regulators to demand that banks shutdown certain business accounts.

Proposed by Missouri Republican Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer , the House legislation passed 265 to 159 and is designed to target the Obama’s administration’s “Operation Choke Point,” a Justice Department effort to require businesses to stop banks from working with certain businesses.

These businesses include lawful firearms dealers, payday lenders, escort services and other companies. The Washington Post noted that while the Justice Department cut off financial services to certain industries, it encouraged banks to provide services to others like illegal marijuana sales.

So gun dealers and payday loan companies are bad, but marijuana stores are ok?

Right!

DOJ Investigates Itself, Clears Itself Of Wrongdoing.

From The Blaze via H/T Instapundit:

An internal investigation by the Department of Justice asserts there was no wrongdoing by the department in the controversial Operation Choke Point.

Operation Choke Point is run through the Department of Justice, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Consumer Financial Protection Board and targets how banks handle accounts with the gun industry, payday lenders, casinos, check cashers and debt collectors, among other businesses deemed as high risk by the government.
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Brian Wise, a senior adviser to the U.S. Consumer Coalition, which opposes the operation, called the investigation “a farce.”

“If the administration was serious about an investigation, they wouldn’t have had the very agency that is being investigated conduct it,” Wise told The Blaze in a statement.

“When watchdog groups like the U.S. Consumer Coalition called for an independent investigation, the president proceeded to restrict the authority of the offices of inspectors general within his own administration,” Wise said. “This unprecedented move got little media attention and only proves to show that President Obama, in his final year in office, plans to continue these extra-legal programs and hide the truth. We believe Americans are smarter than that.”

The inspector general at the Justice Department and other inspectors general have complained to Congress that they are inhibited from carrying out investigations.

How convenient.

Operation Choke Point Hearing Reveals DOJ Threats And Strong-Arming

From The Daily Caller:

“Operation Choke Point is one of the most dangerous programs I have experienced in my 45 years of service as a bank regulator, bank attorney and consultant, and bank board member. Operating without legal authority and guided by a political agenda, unelected officials at the DOJ are discouraging banks from providing basic banking services…to lawful businesses simply because they don’t like them,” said William M. Isaac, former chairman of the FDIC.

Thursday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing focused on the legality of DOJ overreach. Letters have poured in from company owners in support of these suspicions, noting startling cases where the DOJ reportedly has directly strong-armed banks into dropping clients not engaging in fraud.

Virginia Republican Rep. Robert Goodlatte revealed that one of the more egregious examples sent in to the committee was a meeting between the DOJ and a bank regarding the continued provision of financial services to a payday loan company.

The DOJ official reportedly told the banker, “I don’t like this product, and I don’t believe it should have a place in our financial system. And if you don’t agree, there will be an immediate, unplanned audit of your entire bank.”

The Justice Department has now served over 50 subpoenas on banks, and Alabama Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus expressed considerable concern that dragging banks into a long and expensive process is just an underhanded way of encouraging banks to drop clients as an easy-out.

What ever this Regime can't get done legislatively, the act administratively, with little to no scrutiny.

From t he most transparent Administration ever.

Rand Paul Seeks To Prevent ‘End-Around’ On Gun Companies

From The Daily Caller:

Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul has filed an amendment aimed at protecting Second Amendment rights by preventing two federal agencies from pulling an “end-around” on gun and ammunition manufacturers and sellers.

Paul is seeking to amend the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for the 2015 budget to prevent any funds given to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or Department of Justice (DOJ) from targeting gun and ammunition companies.

In Paul’s amendment, filed Thursday evening, the FDIC will not be allowed “to classify the sale or manufacture of a firearm or ammunition as an activity involving risk.”

Yep, put it into the Law and make the Dear Leader break yet another law, that's inconvenient.

Congressman Proposes Choking Off Funding For DOJ Program Targeting Gun Dealers

From the Daily Caller:

A Missouri congressman hopes to give the Department of Justice a taste of its own medicine with an amendment to halt an initiative that he says uses “intimidation tactics” and forces banks to sever relationships with legitimate businesses.

Blaine Luetkemeyer wants to choke off funding for “Operation Choke Point.”

“What it does is goes after an entire industry whether it’s obeying the law or not. And that’s just wrong,” Luetkemeyer said of the initiative in an interview with The Daily Caller.

The Republican lawmaker’s amendment was successfully attached to the Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill which passed a vote in the House late Thursday.

The amendment comes on the heels of a staff report issued Thursday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The report claims that “Operation Choke Point has forced banks to terminate relationships with a wide variety of entirely lawful and legitimate merchants.”

I think Congress needs to go further and cut off ALL funding of the DOJ until Holder explains himself regarding Fast & Furious, why there is no investigation regarding the IRS scandal, Benghazi, et. al.

Gun sellers in the government's crosshairs

From Rick Moran at The American Thinker Blog:

The Justice Department calls it "Operation Choke Point" and it's causing perhaps hundreds of gun shops and manufacturers across the country a lot of inconvenience and lost profits.

It seems that the FDIC issued orders in 2011 that forced banks to scrutinize "high risk" businesses like gun stores, porn shops, and drug paraphenalia outlets. The result was that lines of credit, credit card transaction processing, and even bank accounts have all come under attack by banks scared to do business with gun stores. ................

Individual banks are denying any targeting by industry, but the banker's trade association makes it clear what's going on:

"We're being threatened with a regulatory regime that attempts to foist on us the obligation to monitor all types of transactions," Richard Riese, a senior vice president at the American Bankers Association, said in the April 28 issue of American Banker. "All of this is predicated on a notion that the banks are a choke point for all businesses."

In an interview with The Times, Mr. Riese said the cost of doing business with gun retailers outweighs the benefits for some banks, given that regulators deem the industry as "risky," state laws vary on the sale of guns and ammunition, and the Justice Department's enforcement.

Gun control by stealth. Unelected bureaucrats taking the law into their own hands to stifle an industry that is selling a product with which they disagree. It doesn't get much worse than that as far as a misuse of power.

Since the can't pass a law and lost at SCOTUS, they are going to try a regulate sellers out of business.